- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Region: A
- Rating: R
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: MGM
- Blu-ray Release Date: August 2, 2011
- List Price: $16.99
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Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:2.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Sergio Leone directed a series of films, based in Italy, and subsequently dubbed “spaghetti Westerns”. Like its predecessor, The Magnificent Seven, which was a remake of the Japanese film, Seven Samurai, A Fistful of Dollars, released in 1964, was a remake of the Japanese classic Yojimbo. A Fistful of Dollars ushered in For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and eventually the big kahuna, Once Upon a Time in the West. Despite being obviously dubbed-in English for some of the cast, the groundwork for a legendary movie genre was spawned. Evocative camera work, coupled with an emotionally on point score, signaled the beginning of a different type of Western in which good and evil, principled and amoral, coexist within blurred lines of distinction. Clint Eastwood, then a relatively little known American actor, got the opportunity of a lifetime to star in this low-budget film, and to create a new archetypal film anti-hero, “the man with no name.” There is a rawness to A Fistful of Dollars that is at once refreshing and a hint of things yet to come. Objectively, the soundtrack is compressed mono, the print quality decent, and the overall editing economical. The storyline is actually sophisticated for a Western, focusing on a loner gunman who interposes himself in the feud between two warring factions inhabiting a Mexican border town.
Video Quality
[Rating:3/5]
The close up shots, and there are plenty, look quite surprisingly crisp. It is the sudden and dramatic use of isolated shots of faces, shoes, holstered weapons, and other props that became a Leone trademark in his later films. The distant and night scenes appear slightly grainy, probably a casualty of time on the original print. The gun fights are superbly orchestrated and the rundown character of the town, well captured. One of the few distractions is the clearly fake blood (acrylic paint?) on the characters’s faces. This would certainly not fly in today’s theaters. The camera work is trailblazing for its era and the occasional miscalculation is outweighed by the immediacy and impact of the cinematic drama.
Audio Quality
[Rating:2.5/5]
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is a remastering of a monaural recording. As such, it will deliver a somewhat flat acoustic. However, one can hear the genesis of the subsequent films in this series, and the ultimate inspiration for film composer Ennio Morricone, and his score for Once Upon A Time in the West. There is no obvious surround information.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]
An interesting sidelight by Sir Christopher Frayling, Sergio Leone’s biographer, looks at the marketing of this film. There are several other sidebar short subjects that go into the making and reception of this film, all of which are worth the watch.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
Using the analogy of the Wagnerian Ring Cycle, in which Das Rheingold is the prologue, one can view A Fistful of Dollars as occupying a similar relationship to the Leone films that followed, culminating in spaghetti Western’s Gotterdammerung, Once Upon a Time in the West. In spite of the copious violence portrayed on screen, there is almost a Shakespearean backdrop which involves Eastwood’s nameless character playing off one gang against the other until, with his assistance, they are all eliminated. Depth of character development is not the main thrust of this film; this is one area that improved greatly with the later Leone films. In spite of some of the visual and audio shortcomings noted above, and the one-dimensionality of nearly all of the characters except Eastwood’s, A Fistful of Dollars is worthy of your consideration.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product]B004IGF1QK[/amazon-product]
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:2.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]
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